EARTHblog

A Chesapeake Energy drilling rig working in Oklahoma hit a shallow pocket of gas on Thursday causing a blowout which burned the rig to the ground. Jim Gipson, Director - Media Relations for Chesapeake, told the media one story but told a concerned Denton citizen a completely different story. Both stories can't be true.

Our ordeal living in Gasland has ended. All I can say about it, and all I care to say about it, is that “The matter has been resolved”.

Read into that how you will, I'll say no more about it.

As my family and our animals begin our new life in Pilot Point, TX, where the air is clean, and the water supply free of drilling chemicals, I have been fielding a number of calls and emails about our new life.

In today’s Denver Post, Mark Jaffe reports that the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission is creating two local government liaison positions. The Colorado Oil and Gas Association – the industry lobbying group - is also adding a community liaison position.

As a new drilling wave hits Colorado’s Front Range, local governments are working hard to get in front of drilling and have proper safeguards in place before it’s too late.

Unfortunately, local control is the last thing the state and the industry wants. COGA’s Tisha Schuller stated in the article that the “industry is engaging in a more meaningful way than it used to.”

This is actually a case of the oil and gas industry and the state dusting off a dirty old strategy and making it sound shiny and new and helpful.

Interstate river basin commissions are based on noble values: sharing resources, not polluting neighbors downstream, and planning so water resources aren’t sucked dry. Then again, ideas are only as good as the people who make them reality. When it comes to Marcellus Shale gas development, the Susquehanna River Basin Commission (SRBC)—responsible for coordinating water resources among Maryland, New York, and Pennsylvania—seems to have fallen down on the job.

“[The] Responsible Jewellery Council’s Chain of Custody destroys value […]
The Chain of Custody is a fiction that cannot truly be verified.”
– Chaim Even-Zohar, one of the most prominent, respected journalists in the jewelry trade press.

The Responsible Jewellery Council (RJC) website declares that its 350+ members are

“committed to promoting responsible ethical, human rights, social and environmental practices in a transparent and accountable manner throughout the industry from mine to retail. “

These are noble sentiments. How to square them with Even-Zohar’s quote?